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Page 414
of mind, no intended slight. Alinor knew she had only to mention it and Ian would beg pardonso it was not worth being angry about or mentioning.
Yet, no matter how Alinor strove with herselftelling herself how good her husband was, how loving, how honest; telling herself what a fool she was, how unreasonable, how unfairshe could not control that inner withdrawal. She had not said a cross word, she had smiled and served him with all compliance, yet he sensed the change in her. It broke her heart to see the hurt in his eyes, to hear him start a conversation or tell a joke and then drop it, and look away. She tried and tried to respond naturally, but the effort seemed to make her more wooden. As she sat by her embroidery, working with the frantic energy of frustration, Alinor was so angry with herself that she could not find a corner of her heart or mind to be angry at what Ian said.
The worst of it was that Alinor could not understand what was wrong with her. Never in her life had she been petty or spiteful. She had never blamed her grandfather or Simon for being what they were. She put up with their male idiocies, working around their quirks to accomplish her purposeif possible with due care not to offend their upright souls. Why was this one small quirk of Ian's different? Obviously, he did not wish to spend his time sighing at his lady's feet; obviously, he wished with all his heart to live normally with his wife, enjoying her and pleasuring in her enjoyment of him. It was so unimportanta dream that once in a while mistily haunted a man's mind.
But Alinor was spoiled in a deeper and more basic way than mere yielding to a woman's whims could spoil her. From the time she had had a woman's emotions, she had been the very center of her men's existence. They could revile her, beat her, fling themselves upon horses and ride away, vowing they would part from her, but they knew and Alinor knew that they could not live without her. She was the core of life, the beating heart

 
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